


bind your hair in lovely crowns

by Ro29



Series: "Be the Rarepair content you want to see in the world" [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Braiding someone's hair can actually be something so intimate, Brief hints of introspection, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Multi, but mostly fluffy romance!, teensy tiny hint of hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27421996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: Tup fidgets, “I don’t know, it’s not really good enough. Not for—” He cuts himself off, bites his lip.Not for you, Rex finishes in his head. Can see the moment Padmé does the same, the almost gentle heartbreak and determination that grows there, shining bright and fierce, doing something strange to Rex’s chest.“Of course it is,” she says, simply, easily, as if it doesn’t even require thought to do, “Of course it is Tup, you did it for me.”
Relationships: CT-5385 | Tup/Padmé Amidala/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: "Be the Rarepair content you want to see in the world" [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022017
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	bind your hair in lovely crowns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastbattlecry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastbattlecry/gifts).



> this is _completely_ Cry's fault, he threw it at me and it was so good and soft I physically could not resist.
> 
> title is from Anne Carson's translation of Sappho's Fragment 81

“Good job, that looks lovely.” The quiet words of reassurance seem loud in the gentle quiet of the room, broken only by the soft music playing somewhere in the corner of the apartment.

Tup fidgets, “I don’t know, it’s not really good enough. Not for—” He cuts himself off, bites his lip.

_Not for you_ , Rex finishes in his head. Can see the moment Padmé does the same, the almost gentle heartbreak and determination that grows there, shining bright and fierce, doing something strange to Rex’s chest.

“Of course it is,” she says, simply, _easily_ , as if it doesn’t even require thought to do, “Of course it is Tup, you did it for me.”

She reaches a hand up, brushes gentle fingers over the braided strands. Says, with something like admiration, like love, in her voice, “You put effort into this, to do this _for me_ , of course it’s good enough. How could it not be?”

Tup fidgets, in his seat, looks away from her and Rex both, as if he can’t bear it.

“Maybe,” Padmé says, grabbing for his hand, “It is not as good as you want it to be, maybe it is not the best version you have ever seen.”

Tup scoffs, self-derision clear on his face and Rex wants to wipe it off, order it away or smooth it away with his hands or his lips.

Padmé just squeezes Tup’s hand, gentle and sturdy, “Hush, let me finish.”

Tup shifts, abashed, nods his head though Padmé can’t see it.

Padmé brings Tup’s hand to her lips, presses a kiss there and rests it against her cheek.

“Maybe this is not the best version you’ve seen of this braid,” She says, runs her thumb over the back of his hand. Meets Rex’s eyes and smiles, gentle, “But you’ll improve the more you go, and this version right here is one you spent a long time on, just because you wanted to learn, to make _me_ happy and so you could have another thing to make _yourself_ happy too.”

She breaks Rex’s gaze, turns to look up at Tup and reaches out a hand, cups his cheek, “ _That_ is what’s important. Not whether or not it’s good enough for me.”

Padmé rubs her thumb against Tup’s tattoo, presses down on it, laughs a little, “I’m just a woman Tup, and nothing has to be worthy of me. _Especially_ not you.”

Tup opens his mouth to protest and she shakes her head, “No Tup, I am a woman who gets to sometimes fight for different points of view in the Senate, but I am not any more important than you are.”

She cuts her gaze to Rex again, bites her lip, eyes worried, “Okay?”

Rex’s breath catches in his throat and he can’t make himself form the words, sees Tup struggle to do it as well. He ducks his head, nods instead. Hears the whispered ‘Yes’ from Tup. Feels something fragile build in his heart.

There’s quiet for a beat, and the song on the radio swells, melancholy and longing.

“Rex,” Padmé calls, and when he looks up she has her other hand outstretched to him, hair still in the up-do Tup pulled it in, just a bit messy and the slightest bit crooked. She looks gorgeous, and gentle and _kind_ , she looks like everything he doesn’t deserve.

He goes to her in spite of it, or maybe because of it. He is learning things about himself every day, and he’s learned, since falling in with Tup and Padmé, that he is a greedy creature made of wants and things close to love.

He thinks it might be love, is scared a little, by all that entails. This thing that sometimes feels bigger than his body, almost overwhelms him entirely when he looks at the picture Tup and Padmé make in the soft light.

She holds onto his hand, gentle and steady, grounding. Squeezes once, reaches up and presses into _keldabe_ , “Okay?” She asks again. And he thinks that, maybe, this is as much for her as it is for them, because there is something desperate in her tone.

He swallows against the lump in his throat, and his voice, when he finally answers, is a rasp.

“Okay,”

She breathes out a shaky sigh of relief, presses in for a kiss with no fire, just a gentle ember of warmth, care.

When they break apart, Tup is watching them with something shining in his eyes, hesitant still, even after they’ve all sat and talked about them and everything they are to each other before.

Rex tilts his head, raises an eyebrow in challenge. Tup giggles, nervous and lovely and leans down, takes the invitation and kisses him. Rex smiles into it, threads his fingers into Tup’s hair, and breaks it, presses into _keldabe_ and stays like that.

Padmé kisses each of their cheeks in turn, hums. Rex realizes she’s looking at his hands, still entwined in Tup’s hair, watches as a thought springs to her brilliant mind. Sees the way she lights up and can’t quite bite back his smile.

She smiles, gentle and sweet, presses a kiss to his neck and murmurs, “Do you want to learn how to do the braids as well?”

Rex smiles, sees the want in Tup’s eyes that he can’t quite conceal before Rex can catch it. Wants, in that moment, to give both of these people the world, can only give them his heart.

“Yes,” he says, and watches something like wondered awe light up in Tup’s eyes, his smile bright and gorgeous and giddy.

Padmé grins, turns to Tup, cups his face in her hands like he’s precious, “Show him how to?”

Tup fidgets, starts to speak, cuts himself off before he gets a word out.

He breathes, deep and steady, and leans into her hands. Closes his eyes for a second and visibly steadies himself, opens them and nods, “Okay.”

Padmé smiles, softly, and kisses him, “Thank you Tup.”

Tup shifts, turns his head away with a nervous giggle. Rex grins at the sight, feels unspeakably lucky.

They shift around, settle down where Rex can have an easy line of sight to Tup’s hands as he braids Padmé’s hair.

Tup is focused, and though his voice is just a tad shaky, his hands are gentle and sure as he sections off the hair.

“The two front parts come later.” He explains, voice slowly growing more steady as he goes through the motions, “This bit here goes into a low ponytail, and then you cut it into three sections, braid it normally.”

Tup looks up after tying it off and Rex nods, smiles, “And next?”

Tup grins, settled in his own skin now, steady and sure. “Wrap it around into a little bun, and you pin it there. Then you can move to the other sections.”

Tup starts on the right side, “You grab a bit of the hair here, split it into three, and here you want to take the strands under, so this right one goes under into the middle, then the same for the left.” He looks up and smiles, shy “I forget sometimes to keep it under and start going over instead.”

Padmé hums, “That used to happen to me a lot as well, it’s just so easy to slip into the usual way.”

Tup giggles, and Rex never wants to stop hearing that sound, precious and lovely.

“Mhm! But here, okay, you want to keep going down like that, right under to the middle then left, but after this first bit, start to add the rest of the hair in bit by bit.” He shows Rex how to do it, grabs little sections as he goes and adds them to the right as he brings it middle, then repeats the process on the left. He goes down until the entire side is done, then repeats it on the other.

Tup grins as he finishes tying it off, “And then you just take the side braids and wrap it around the bun from before and pin it!”

Once he finishes he shifts, looks up at Rex, suddenly shy again “Padmé said that you can make it look fluffier too, by pulling the hair out of the braid a bit, but I keep getting too scared to try. I don’t want to ruin it.”

Padmé turns her head, meets Rex’s eyes and leans her head against Tup’s knee, presses a gentle kiss there. Rex runs a careful hand over the braid and smiles, nods to Padmé and pulls Tup in for a kiss.

“I doubt you’d wreck it,” he tells him, “You are far more competent than you seem to think you are.”

Tup laughs, helpless, and kisses him again.

Rex turns to look at Tup’s handiwork again, presses a kiss to Padmé’s forehead.

“It looks lovely, and I’d love to practice sometime for you Padmé, but is there one that works for Tup’s hair?”

Tup’s breath hitches and Padmé looks up at him, smile wide and beautiful, and nods.

“Here, switch spots with me love, so I can show him how to do it.”

Tup grins brightly, eyes shining and slips down to fill the spot Padmé just left, folds his hands in his lap and fiddles with his fingers.

Padmé presses a kiss to the crown of his head, whispers something Rex doesn’t catch but makes Tup duck his head.

Padmé turns her smile to him and pulls him in for another gentle kiss. Breaks away only to reach for his hands, calloused and worn, and press another kiss to his palms.

“Okay,” she says, threads her fingers gently through Tup’s hair to detangle it, “Now, same idea as the braids Tup showed you, just instead of the sides you go straight down the middle.”

She brushes the hair back and Rex watches as Tup melts into the feeling. Smiles, wants to reach out and hold him.

Just barely restrains himself from doing it.

Padmé flicks her eyes to him, see’s something there that makes her smile before she turns back to the hair in her hand, splits the top bit of it into three parts.

“Now, right goes under to the middle, then left does the same and you go down like that, adding bits of hair to it,” Her voice is gentle and her fingers are skilled and steady as she goes down, until she hits the spot where Tup’s hair usually sits when it’s pulled into a bun or ponytail.

She twists the rest of the hair up and around into a bun, ties it off and pins it. “And then just do that, nice and easy and it looks lovely.”

Rex smiles, “It does,” he agrees, enjoys the way Tup smiles and goes dark at the compliment.

Tup shifts, bites his lip, looks up through his eyelashes at Rex and asks, shy, “Do you want to try?”

Rex feels something in his chest stutter, doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know what about this small thing makes him feel like this. But the thought of his hands, harsh and bloodied over the years, doing something so gentle is enough to make him pause, need to catch his breath.

He nods, shaky, and the way Tup lights up is worth it.

He was made for war, but like this, with Tup and Padmé it’s easy to forget. To think that maybe he was made for gentle things too.

The apartment is warm and Rex’s hands are gentle running through Tup’s hair, and Padmé is a reassuring weight at his side.

It’s lovely and Rex thinks, guiltily, that he wouldn’t give it up for anything.

He tucks the thought away and lets himself have this gentle thing, will keep it for as long as he can have it. Will have and hold these two for as long as they let him.

He presses a kiss to the top of Tup’s head and starts braiding.

**Author's Note:**

> They're just!! So soft!!! I love them
> 
> If you want to find me other places I have a [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and a [fandom tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC!


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